El Gaucho Inca, the 7-year-old Argentinian-Peruvian restaurant in Fort Myers, owes its good fortune to hard work, luck and a fiercely loyal following.

When it comes to El Gaucho Inca in Fort Myers, there tends to be two types of people: those who haven’t been (yet), and those who are obsessed.

Since opening in 2011, the Peruvian-Argentinian restaurant has garnered a loyal following.

Owned by the husband-and-wife team of Mariano Maldonado and Rocio Navarette, El Gaucho Inca demonstrates their hard work and good fortune. Maldonado grew up in Argentina in an Italian family. His father was a chef, his brother was a chef, his mother was a pastry-maker. Though Maldonado didn't go to culinary school, he learned plenty at home.

“When we started dating, he always liked to cook for me,” says Navarette, who is from Peru. “It was very different for me in Peru. Men don’t usually cook for the family. So when he said he liked to cook for me, it was a new thing and I liked it.”

After the two married, they blended their families — each had two children from a previous marriage — and had another child together. They’d host big gatherings with friends and family, and Maldonado would cook big meals.

“My husband comes from an Italian heritage,” Navarette says. “Italians like to eat with like 20 people at a table. My family only had seven, so he invited my brother, my brother’s family, family friends. People were always there saying, ‘Why don’t you open a restaurant? You have very good taste.’”

El Gaucho Inca opened in April 2011 on Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers.(Photo: Artis Henderson/Special to The News-Press)

Maldonado said he wasn’t interested, but the downturn in the economy changed everything.

Maldonado had worked in construction. He lost his job with the recession, so he’d spend his days at home cooking elaborate meals. One day Navarette, who was studying at Hodges University, saw a small restaurant space for rent in a plaza off Colonial Boulevard. The space already had a working freezer and a hood — two of the most expensive pieces to add when converting a space to a restaurant. It was newly painted, and the landlord was offering five months free rent.

“He wants to give me the key,” Navarette told her husband. “They’re only asking first month’s rent and a deposit. It’s not much of an investment.”

The pair bought tables and chairs from other restaurants that were going out of business, and slowly put together their dining room. They named it El Gaucho Inca for their two heritages. When they opened in early April 2011 a news crew came out to interview them because they were one of only a handful of businesses opening during the recession.

“How will you survive until November or December?” the reporter asked Navarette.

“I have good faith in my husband,” she said.

The pair called on the friends and family who had dined at their house, plus Navarette’s professors and fellow students. Word of mouth began to spread.

The restaurant’s reputation grew, and after two years it moved to a bigger space in the same plaza. Today, the restaurant is routinely named one of the best restaurants in town. Navarette and Maldonado opened a second restaurant in Naples in 2016, but after Maldonado suffered a heart attack last year the pair decided to scale back to just the Fort Myers location.

Maldonado is known as a perfectionist.

He wants to make sure everything is right, down to the produce that comes into his kitchen each week. When he eats at the restaurant, Navarette says the family has to make sure he faces the wall. Otherwise, he sees all the things that need to be attended to — a glass of water that needs refilling, a couple who needs to be seated.